martin_EGTKgood on ya mate! 🙂
martin_EGTKI’d really love to see a direct service to Dresden from London, a journey that could take under 2 hours currently take up to 7 because you have to transfer at Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich or Cologne.
martin_EGTKI don’t think anyone has a problem with you personally, I know I certainly don’t. I just think people object to your ‘unique’ use of the english language. Please try and write in full english.
Other than that mate I have no problems with you other than the fact that you live in Swindon!!! (sorry mate Oxford Utd fan….it’s my duty to hate Swindon Town!!!) In fact I think you contribute a lot of valuable opinions to the forum, we just need to be able to read them 😀
Take care mate, just please write full english, not everyone is is a native speaker. Now lets get back to what really matters……..Aviation!
martin_EGTKIt will have been a Buzz BAe 146 operating on behalf of Ryanair on the Dublin run.
martin_EGTKMaybe I’ll forget it then 😀
martin_EGTKhi mate welcome to the forums!
martin_EGTKTempelholf is the ex Luftwaffe base. Tegel was the West German airport. I’ve flown out of it myself and don’t rate it very highly at all. Horrible small place really.
There are plans to turn Schonefield into a new major international hub and to close Tempelholf and Tegel. I hope to see this go ahead.
I used to fly to Berlin and then drive down or take the train to Dresden, but I’ve come to loath Tegel so much that I now pay the extra £60 and fly to Dresden via Frankfurt.
Dresden is a great airport with a wonderful new terminal, I’m flying there in a few weeks and will post some photos.
martin_EGTKBA World Traveller Plus is probably the best I’ve had.
martin_EGTKI reckon this is the first step in extending the AA/BA partnership. Now that they have the go ahead to codeshare, I’d imagine that AA will offer BA connections to San Diego.
martin_EGTKYou were right Steve, O’Hare is the busiest overall airport, but Heathrow is the busiest international.
martin_EGTKwysiwyg, I’m so glad you mentioned hanging around at the nearest flight school etc. I wasn’t sure if I would get credit for this, but I used to work at Enstone Airfield just doing any odd jobs they had in a formal arrangement I would get free flying in return. I used to go up with all sorts of people including Richard Branson’s best mate!
As I think I’ve said before, next month all my major interviews take place including the one for OAT so I’m already planning my interview techniques, but to put it in the most pleasent way possible I’m already shaking with nerves!
martin_EGTKMINIDOH, there are a couple of things in your post that I would like to add something to. Getting a PPL prior to starting training is a real no no. The majority of decent training schools now only offer ab-initio courses and don’t like pilots having a PPL prior to commencing training. So do not get your PPL before training, you are much more likely to be given credit for doing some casual flying otherwise the schools tend to feel that you have been taught by someone elses rules.
wannabe pilot, your story is very fimilar to me, being a pilot is all I’ve wanted to do since I was 6. Twelve years down the line I am now starting to get to where I want to be and I’m currently in the process of applying to flight schools.
I wrote the following in a similar post, I hope it helps:
“Sponsorship just isn’t happening at the moment, my sources at BA tell me they plan to restart by the end of 2004, but this isn’t looking very likely at the moment. In fact many experts I’ve spoken to don’t expect airline recruitment to ever return to it’s pre 9/11 state.
The easyJet sponsorship deal looks good, but you’ll actually end up paying a lot more than normal training as they need you to pay bonds, plus the chance of acceptance is minimal and like any training course you’re not garenteed a job. Your wage will also be very small after completing the easyJet course if you do actually get a placement with the airline.
I’m going to be training at OAT all being well, I’m having my full interviews next month. OAT is a very good school and has connections with bmi and several other major airlines, however it is VERY expensive. My training there will cost £62,000, but as I live in Oxford I don’t have to pay living costs. The total cost of the course at OAT is £72,000 which includes three and a half months in Texas for your VFR training. However, Oxford provides some of the best training in the world.
Other good schools are Cabair in Cranfield near Cambridge, the total for the training there is £47,750, or if you pay up front it’s £45,000. Cabair is a good school as well, but doesn’t provide some of the extras that you may find at other schools. However I would recommend it, I took a long look round and I liked it a lot, it’s currently my second choice.
BAe Systems moved their training school from Glasgow Prestwick to Jerez in Spain a few years ago and provide very good training for a similiar price to Cabair.
There are also a lot of great schools out in the states where you can train from £20,000. However you will need to convert your license from a FAA license to a JAA one.
Minidoh made a small mistake, you need to get at least a CPL to start teaching. It is a good way to build up your hours. But I’d recommend you get your full ATPL so that you don’t need to go back to training school when you want to join an airline.
These days a lot of airlines expect you to pay for your own type rating as well which costs roughly £18,000, but don’t pay for one of these until you actually are offered a job.
As wysiwyg says, the job market is extremely competitive and not in a great state at all at the moment. Ryanair and easyJet will be employing around 3000 new first officers in the next few years, but these jobs will be hard to come by. Getting a job is extremely tough, so before you fork out what could be up to £100,000 make sure you are 100% commited and be prepared to have to wait a long time before getting a job.
In terms of loans, it is very hard to secure a full loan, some schools can provide you with a loan for up to 50% but not much more. The APR on a loan for flight training is generally much lower than average, but you must start paying the loan back six months after you have finished training. HSBC are the only UK bank that even consider giving loans to trainee pilots.”
But if you really want it and you work hard enough at it you’ll get there. Good luck mate and I hope to see you in the skies some day soon I hope this helps!
martin_EGTKI’m a part time professional software developer for Flight Simulator, my company is EMAtch Simulations (http://www.ematchsims.co.uk).
I’m also CEO and Founder of Elation Airways (http://www.elationairways.co.uk) which is the UK’s second largest Virtual Airline. I’m based at our Gatwick base but we also have crew bases at London City, Manchester, Belfast City, Edinburgh and our West country hub which covers Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter. We operate in a style that could be described as a cross between flybe and bmi operating ERJ135/145s, BAe 146-200s, and 737-300s with 12 737-800s and 5 767-300ERs on order.
Elation is currently down as we are installing a new ACARS system but it will be back up in the next few days.
Sorry that was a shamless plug 🙂
martin_EGTKThe worst thing is that you are paying £20,000 ($24,000) to work for a budget airline which has a huge staff turnover rate like Ryanair.
The likes of BA and Virgin still pay for type ratings, I’m not sure about the charters though?
martin_EGTKSponsorship just isn’t happening at the moment, my sources at BA tell me they plan to restart by the end of 2004, but this isn’t looking very likely at the moment. In fact many experts I’ve spoken to don’t expect airline recruitment to ever return to it’s pre 9/11 state.
The easyJet sponsorship deal looks good, but you’ll actually end up paying a lot more than normal training as they need you to pay bonds, plus the chance of acceptance is minimal and like any training course you’re not garenteed a job. Your wage will also be very small after completing the easyJet course if you do actually get a placement with the airline.
I’m going to be training at OAT all being well, I’m having my full interviews next month. OAT is a very good school and has connections with bmi and several other major airlines, however it is VERY expensive. My training there will cost £62,000, but as I live in Oxford I don’t have to pay living costs. The total cost of the course at OAT is £72,000 which includes three and a half months in Texas for your VFR training. However, Oxford provides some of the best training in the world.
Other good schools are Cabair in Cranfield near Cambridge, the total for the training there is £47,750, or if you pay up front it’s £45,000. Cabair is a good school as well, but doesn’t provide some of the extras that you may find at other schools. However I would recommend it, I took a long look round and I liked it a lot, it’s currently my second choice.
BAe Systems moved their training school from Glasgow Prestwick to Jerez in Spain a few years ago and provide very good training for a similiar price to Cabair.
There are also a lot of great schools out in the states where you can train from £20,000. However you will need to convert your license from a FAA license to a JAA one.
Minidoh made a small mistake, you need to get at least a CPL to start teaching. It is a good way to build up your hours. But I’d recommend you get your full ATPL so that you don’t need to go back to training school when you want to join an airline.
These days a lot of airlines expect you to pay for your own type rating as well which costs roughly £18,000, but don’t pay for one of these until you actually are offered a job.
As wysiwyg says, the job market is extremely competitive and not in a great state at all at the moment. Ryanair and easyJet will be employing around 3000 new first officers in the next few years, but these jobs will be hard to come by. Getting a job is extremely tough, so before you fork out what could be up to £100,000 make sure you are 100% commited and be prepared to have to wait a long time before getting a job.
In terms of loans, it is very hard to secure a full loan, some schools can provide you with a loan for up to 50% but not much more. The APR on a loan for flight training is generally much lower than average, but you must start paying the loan back six months after you have finished training. HSBC are the only UK bank that even consider giving loans to trainee pilots.
But if you really want it and you work hard enough at it you’ll get there. Good luck mate and I hope to see you in the skies some day soon 🙂 I hope this helps!
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